"The predominantly white and wealthy residents of the southern area of Baton Rouge have proposed seceding from the city proper and incorporating into a new one to be called “St. George.”

The movement began as an effort to create a new school district, but after the state legislature repeatedly mothballed its proposals — claiming that they could not approve an independent school district that was unaffiliated with a city — organizers shifted their energies to the creation of “St. George.”

The new city would be the fifth largest in the state, with over 107,000 residents, and would include two of the largest tax revenue bases in the state: Perkins Rowe and the Mall of Louisiana. A study by the Baton Rouge Area Chamber concluded that Baton Rouge residents “will be disproportionately paying taxes to the proposed municipality,” given city governance’s reliance on sales tax revenues."

I lived for a year within walking distance of Perkins Rowe and a 5 minute drive from the Mall of LA.

If you want to learn about the socioeconomic difficulties in Baton Rouge (as well as many other cities in that region), I suggest you start with Katrina. Forced migration often causes difficulties when large segments of the population are required to mix.

As far as the area itself, I do think it's a bit ridiculous to incorporate a new city, essentially annexing the two largest sources of sales and business tax revenue in the area. I can guarantee you that Perkins Rowe and the Mall of LA would not have been approved by the city of Baton Rouge had they thought that just a few years later they would lose out on those revenues to a bunch of people wanting to secede.

The article (Huffington Post did this as well and received a scathing email from me) is trying to put a white vs. black spin on it where there isn't really one...that area is about as diverse an area as I've ever lived in. Rather, this is about trying to co-opt tens of millions of dollars from a parish and a city in response to not being able to create a school district that the city didn't have jurisdiction over. Doing this would not only create a larger financial divide between the citizens, it would also turn the city of Baton Rouge into a smoking crater.

Hypothetically speaking (considering I've never been to Denver), imagine how upset Denver residents would be if people wanting to incorporate a new city called "Mile High", which just happened to encompass Mile High, the Pepsi Center and Coors Field. Now "Mile High" gets all that tax revenue, and Denver residents get to pay for it all.

The transition would definitely get ugly for some districts. But mostly for those districts where things really need to get ugly.

Transition? The final product of school "choice" isn't educational utopia, nor has it been proven to be necessarily "better" than the way the current system works in most places. And that is before you factor in all of the other problems it creates.

Regardless, the more I look at this, particularly the map of the proposed new incorporation, the more I think it has very little to do with schools at all and more of a money grab. Not only have they cordoned off Mall of LA and Perkins, but basically EVERY other major retail zone in the area that isn't an LSU satellite.

Considering that there is really nowhere else for people to go, this won't solve or even address any race issues (which is why it was stupid for the articles to phrase it as such).

Transition? The final product of school "choice" isn't educational utopia, nor has it been proven to be necessarily "better" than the way the current system works in most places. And that is before you factor in all of the other problems it creates.

Didn't say it was Utopia. But you couldn't design a system worse than "Here's your teacher, kid. Hope you like her, cuz she's Tenured."

So where's the conservative "it's just good business weeding out those who make the most money" mantra?

Where's the "We spend more money than anyone and still have lackluster results to show for it, so let's blow up the system" Proggie response?

Anyway. You take your car to the best mechanic you can find. You try to find the best doctor available.

Why only in public education is the story "This is your teacher. You get what you get."

If families had choice in education, many ****ty teachers would have empty classrooms. And districts would have no choice but to let them go. The system is anti-competitive to its core, and makes no sense. We spend boatloads of cash on it. And it doesn't work.

But I guess I'm just wasting my breath on the more stodgy education-establishment conservatives.

Where's the "We spend more money than anyone and still have lackluster results to show for it, so let's blow up the system" Proggie response?

Anyway. You take your car to the best mechanic you can find. You try to find the best doctor available.

Why only in public education is the story "This is your teacher. You get what you get."

If families had choice in education, many ****ty teachers would have empty classrooms. And districts would have no choice but to let them go. The system is anti-competitive to its core, and makes no sense. We spend boatloads of cash on it. And it doesn't work.

But I guess I'm just wasting my breath on the more stodgy education-establishment conservatives.

This "****ty teacher" crap is tiring. For every "this is your teacher, you get what you get", there's "here are your students! you get what you get!"

In my experience, the people who complain the most about teachers are the ****tiest parents.

But yeah, you're wasting your breath, because not only is our public education system not going anywhere, it's not going to get any better using conservative ideas like school "choice", which ultimately (and again, in my experience) don't change the status quo. Then the municipality (usually led by conservatives) says "welp! that didn't work either, but charter schools..." all the while not factoring in the distant, uninvolved parents or the socioeconomic issues which cause poor performance. Nope, it's always the teachers' fault.

Then of course, when you follow the money, it goes right back to the legislators or their friends and relatives. It's happening in Detroit at this very moment.

This "****ty teacher" crap is tiring. For every "this is your teacher, you get what you get", there's "here are your students! you get what you get!"

In my experience, the people who complain the most about teachers are the ****tiest parents.

But yeah, you're wasting your breath, because not only is our public education system not going anywhere, it's not going to get any better using conservative ideas like school "choice", which ultimately (and again, in my experience) don't change the status quo. Then the municipality (usually led by conservatives) says "welp! that didn't work either, but charter schools..." all the while not factoring in the distant, uninvolved parents or the socioeconomic issues which cause poor performance. Nope, it's always the teachers' fault.

Then of course, when you follow the money, it goes right back to the legislators or their friends and relatives. It's happening in Detr. oit at this very moment.

Barkin' up the wrong tree, my friend. I have an immediate relative in Public education. I see first hand the struggle and hard work that many teachers put in. And as I've said before, the best ones view it as mission work more than a job. And I tend to agree with their sentiment.

But there are more than a few that aren't that way. And they get paid just as much whether they like, or are good at what they do or not.

The Lowest Common Denominator culture harms everyone. It drives talented professionals, even with advanced education degrees into other lines of work. You won't attract many of the most talented people into the profession without competitive pay. But you can't have competitive pay when every warm body has to be paid equally.

But that's all mostly beside the point. Once you kids get your single payer dream, do you kids think your doctor should be assigned? Is that the way health care should work?

Any rich area that can get away from a poor area would be wise to do so. Why let them drag you down?

You're out of your element, and are posting about something you have no clue about.

The proposed new school district is in an area where no one really lives. Most live in the western portion of the area in dispute. The eastern portion is populated with retail. A large portion of LA sales taxes go to schools. What they are doing, in fact, is attempting to steal retail revenues from the city of Baton Rouge while re-drawing their district to include "their" population with the retail revenue needed to support "their" schools, even though "their" consumption isn't the only thing that drives revenue in that area.

Sounds to me like residents of an area just want to incorporate and make a city. They are outside of baton Rouge and drew up the lines of the new city along geographical boundires like the miss river and exisiting boundries on the other side. The new city seems to be a standard shape and includes all the areas residents.

So really nothing changes other then a big city pissed some unincorpotated areas nearby they currently had some control over want to be there own city. Throw in a big mall they got huge revnue from and you can see why.

Sounds to me like residents of an area just want to incorporate and make a city. They are outside of baton Rouge and drew up the lines of the new city along geographical boundires like the miss river and exisiting boundries on the other side. The new city seems to be a standard shape and includes all the areas residents.

So really nothing changes other then a big city pissed some unincorpotated areas nearby they currently had some control over want to be there own city. Throw in a big mall they got huge revnue from and you can see why.

Sounds to you? Great. Go live there.

It's not a big mall, it's more or less every retail area in the vicinity.

How would you feel if the majority of what you spent at retail establishments went to bettering your city one year, then went to a bunch of people who just decided they wanted to be separate the next?

I can guarantee you that if you were a resident you wouldn't have been in favor of developing the new retail outlets in the first place, and if people tried to steal their revenue from you you'd be up in arms.
But since it's a poor city far from you, you'll just repeat righty groupthink and pretend this is all okay in the name of 'Merica!

If the area already part of the city of baton Rouge then i am on the cities side. If baton Rouge spent money in an unincorporated area, and now that area wants to form its own city, I am on the new cities side. This would be an example where the leader of a city did a poor job planning. But that should not mean citizens lose the right to incorporate into own city.

On succession I support the fed govt duty to keep the states all part of the same union. But if northern ca wanted to form its own state, i think it should be up to the residents of that area.